VISTA Starts Music Therapy Program

Today's post comes to us via the VT Engage website. It is written by Alejandra O'Connor, current Virginia Tech VISTA, and features her work and the work of Victoria Ho, graduate student at Radford University.

VISTA Starts Music Therapy Program
by Alejandra O'Connor

Radford University student Victoria Ho works with

several students in Roanoke

Once a week, Radford University graduate student Victoria Ho travels from Radford to Roanoke. She meets with children at the Jamestown Community Center to play music. Ho brings a trunk full of instruments including drums, tambourines, castanets, egg shakers and maracas. Her goal is to use music as therapy for children in the United States on refugee status.

Music Therapy is the use of music to reach non-musical goals such as promoting self and cultural expression, increasing social awareness, decreasing anxiety, promoting positive peer interactions and enhancing relationship-building skills. Practitioners must meet a minimum clinical hour requirement and pass a board certification exam. The Music Therapy program in Roanoke is part of Ho’s clinical practice at Radford University. Ho is supervised by her professor James Borling; a Music Therapy professional for over 30 years. Borling has seen music bridge cultural differences and encourages participants to use music to tell stories. “Vicky has a really unique perspective. She has been able to practice the skills that she learned in the classroom. Her desire to help people has been her driving force in this program and you can really see that in her work”.

Ho is the child of a Vietnamese family who first came to the United States as refugees. “I chose to work with refugee children because of my family background. I saw the hardship my parents had to go through in order to become acclimated to US culture. I know that kids in these types of families sometimes hear terrible stories of what life was like back home and it takes a toll on their emotional well-being. Music can provide a way for those emotions to get out so the child can heal. I also like that I can combine my initial career goal of practicing psychiatry with my love of music”. The participants are primarily from Iraq and South Sudan. Ho successfully uses music to bridge age, gender and cultural boundaries of participants. As they learn from each other, their fear of the unknown becomes significantly less prominent in their lives.

Music Therapy provides a safe place for children to learn how to play an instrument while confronting conscious or unconscious issues resulting from forced deportation. It also provides a unique way for children to integrate into their new homes and become successful students and citizens of the United States.

The partnership between Radford University and VT Engage: The Community Learning Collaborative is managed by AmeriCorps VISTA member Alejandra O’Connor.

For Alejandra, home is where the heart is. The daughter of a Marine, she lived many different places growing up, but for high school and college her family settled in North Carolina and she still calls the state her home. She did her undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and in 2011 earned a Global Master of Arts in International Relations from Webster University.

An interest in humanitarian issues, a strong background in service, and a drive to impact communities made VISTA service a perfect next step for Alejandra. She relocated to Blacksburg, VA to be one of two NC Campus Compact VISTAs at Virginia Tech. Initially Alejandra thought the relocation might leave her on her own a lot, but she's found a friend in fellow NC Campus Compact VISTA Wyatt Taylor and met some great people on and off campus who have made her job adventure amazing. She's also been impressed with how the students and faculty on campus take Virginia Tech's motto Ut Prosim (That I May Serve) to heart.

When she's not at work Alejandra is an avid reader and likes to exercise. She's recently picked up boxing thanks to an on-campus club. She also volunteers with her sorority, Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority Inc., supervising recruitment for several undergraduate and graduate chapters. After her year of VISTA service Alejandra plans to join the Peace Corps.

Lighting it up - more VISTA project highlights!

MLK Day of Service was a big event for many of our VISTAs this term, as reported in a January blog post. VISTA Takira Dale, for example, helped to coordinate a MLK Day Read-In that drew 70 volunteers from 3 Winston-Salem-area campuses (Wake Forest, Winston-Salem State, and Salem College) to work with over 50 children, ages 4 -10. Participating kids were from Title I schools or agencies serving at-risk youth. The college students served as reading buddies for the day long event, which included fun activities geared to literacy, safety, civil rights history, and healthy eating.

VISTA Tiara Pugh and her supervisor work on MLK Day.

Elizabeth City State University, VISTAs Marion Hudson and Tiara Pugh coordinated an MLK Day event with the help of funds from NC Campus Compact's MLK Day Challenge Grant. The event drew 180 volunteers who served during the day at a dozen different host sites. The event was a partnership with two other local higher ed institutions, College of the Albermarle and Mid-Atlantic Christian University. 

Lenoir-Rhyne University VISTA Ariel Mitchell reports exciting new programs with her community partner, Centro Latino of Hickory, including a kids tutoring program that began in January and a new elder care program called "Adopto Un Abuelito," which will pair Centro Latino volunteers with elderly residents in the community to provide food assistance and companionship. Partners on the project include Meals on Wheels, the Backpack Project, and a local church. Having convened partners and given input on program design, Ariel will focus now on organizing food-donation drives to support the project.

At Virginia Tech, VISTA Alejandra O'Connor has implemented several improvements to ESL and citizenship programs offered by the Roanoke Redevelopment & Housing Authority (RRHA) and the Coalition for Refugee Resettlement (CRR), a Virginia Tech student organization. Alejandra worked with the RRHA to develop a statement of program goals, and she created a basic reading comprehension and citizenship knowledge assessment to be used in ESL classes. Happily, two of the students Alejandra supports passed their exam and became citizens this period.


Saarah Abdul-Rauf, UNC Chapel-Hill VISTA, established community mentors at Volunteers for Youth (VFY) in Chapel Hill. Saarah worked with the SMART mentoring program, a group at UNC previous providing mentor support for VFY, to transition to a community-based mentoring program.

During the past three months, some VISTAs also supported innovative local and regional alternative breaks. More on those in a future post!

VT VISTA supports engagement with Head Start

As an alumnus of the University of Virginia, VISTA Wyatt Taylor knew a little about in-state rival Virginia Tech. But since he began serving in the VT Engage office to strengthen partnerships with New River Valley Head Start, he's begun to feel like a true "Hokie." (Whatever that is.)

"People rib me about it in the office," Wyatt says of his alma mater. He doesn't seem to mind. Even a winter snow storm that postponed his biggest service event couldn't chill his enthusiasm for Blacksburg. In the fall he enjoyed hiking and other outdoor pursuits, but he spent much of his time visiting community Head Start sites as part of his work to strengthen VT's partnership with the agency. An added bonus has been the community of other VISTAs in the area: "We get together and have pot lucks."

VT volunteers clean a bus used to transport Head Start kids.

Recently, Wyatt coordinated one of VT's premier service events, the MLK Day Care Face Lift. Originally scheduled for January 26 but postponed due to winter weather until February 9, the project sent 53 students to five local Head Start day care centers to clean, paint, and spruce up facilities. The event continues work begun by previous VISTAs, but Wyatt's emphasis has been on connecting student organizations - like VT's men's lacrosse team - directly with Head Start centers so they can continue a volunteer relationship beyond the MLK event. Wyatt also conducted a needs assessment of sites during the event planning stage to ensure the day of service met centers' most pressing needs.

Wyatt has worked with the New River Valley Head Start system to conceive new ways for VT students to support the children. For example, a new bus buddies program will utilize VT student volunteers as bus monitors to accompany children to and from centers. Wyatt has also worked with students and faculty in VT's Agriculture department to create garden boxes at five Head Start centers. A group of students is designing and implementing age-appropriate lesson plans that incorporate gardening activities.

Wyatt Taylor (far left, VISTA shirt) with student volunteers.

Also in the fall, Wyatt helped coordinate service placements for VT's Week of Engagement and the campus's Remember Serve Learn initiative, which involves students, faculty, and staff in service to commemorate tragedies of 9-11 and the Virginia Tech school shooting on April 16. Wyatt included several local Head Start sites in those events. In the spring, he is looking forward to facilitating ongoing connections between student organizations and the New River Valley Head Starts, clarifying student leadership responsibilities, and strengthening the new service efforts.

His own experience doing community service as an undergrad led him to VISTA. "The idea of student engagement is one I put a lot of stock in," he explains. "It was a big part of my college experience." A native Mississippian with two university professor parents, Wyatt sees the Campus Compact VISTA experience leading him to a career that blends higher education and community engagement.

"Coming to VT was a great option for me," he says. "It couldn't have worked out better."